three young artists
The ambition is life-size for Georgie Welch
W
iltshire-based sculptress Georgie Welch is thinking big; in fact, she admits, that she is thinking life-size. “I really want to do a public piece of my own, I know I am capable of it, I have done several under my name, but I really want to have something out there,” she admits, acknowledging that such a work would take her name as an artist to new heights, literally.“I have experience of doing bigger work and it is absolutely fantastic, I love it – it is much more physical and you really get totally involved. “I seem to have been working quietly in the background for so long, doing a public piece on such a scale could be the real break through.” That work in the “background” started around 20 years ago when Welch gave up her job with horses to return to school and study at the Bournville School of Art where she did a degree in art and design. “When I left school I went to work with horses, I was completely horse mad, never got off one! I worked at Talland equestrian centre and from there with eventers and dressage horses,” she remembers. “But at 26 I decided that I wanted to paint; I had always done a lot of drawing although at school I did not do art as I took a science route and art did not fit
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The art set
Sally Duckett meets three up and coming artists and sculptors, determined to make their mark in the commercial equine art world into the curriculum. “It was really difficult going back to school in Birmingham. My last job was near here at Badmington and going from the lush countryside to being based in the concrete – well, it was a real shock.” But despite struggling to cope with city life, it was while she was studying in the Midlands that Welch found the key to her future. “I did two years of the three-year degree and then I touched clay for the first time. I had always thought I was going to paint, I had never thought in three dimension although if you look at my painting at the time, it was as though I was almost trying to sculpt with a brush. Touching clay was the answer to everything.
“I transferred to a figurative sculpture course at Stafford and combined two years into one. I spent lots of time at the police stables there because the course was all figure work and I was desperate to get back to the animals and horses.” Returning to Wiltshire, Welch asked her former employer to loan her some horses as life models, and she set out then to complete her first life-size piece. “I headed out and thought I am just going to make a life size – so started out in the middle of winter using clay!” smiles Welch at the memory of it. “Then the frost hit and clay and frost don’t mix too well! But it was a really good learning curve and from that I got my first commission.” And that has been the way of working for Welch ever since, building on contacts and ensuring that she gets and produces commissions for clients. To a certain extent she has shunned the world of commercialism and mass market. “I realised that if went for the mass market I would probably have to use a resin material for my work,” she explains. “You can’t use bronze in huge quantities because of the cost – and particularly since metal prices have gone crazy in the last few years – but I just absolutely adore bronze, it has a quality that the resin lacks. “I don’t have loads of clients, and perhaps I do need a more commercial string to my bow, but for two clients I am on my eighth piece of work for them, and for that I feel really honoured – it is quite something to be invited into someone’s stable or home to do their dog, their prized pet. You also feel with a smaller client base that you can look after